[G.K Zhukov]

Originally Posted by Miliukov

Granted, then, but I do not feel this justifies forcing Ukraine to pay a higher price than (as cited by Furball) Belarus.

Russia is tired of not getting paid for its natural resouces. They are tired of subsidising countries who are not they're friends. Putin wants as much money as he can get, in order to build Russia and to reinstate its position as a international player. The (former) theft of gas and oil doesnt really have much to do with todays deadlock though.

And furball argument is irrelevent. Belarus is on the A-list. Ukraine is on the C-list, together with most countries.

They've reported a drop because the Ukraine used to act as a conduit for the Russian gas and now is less capable of doing so. I don't think the entire drop in supply could be accounted for by now-prevented Ukrainian thievery.

Maybe, but why havent we heard any reports about large gass-shortages among ukrainians? As Gazprom suplies 1/3 of the gas ukraine needs...

But it isn't capitalism; this is the Russian government hiking the price, not some cackling top-hatted plutocrat. After all, what's the justification of government intervention in the first place if not to prevent gross market failure? I'd personally consider purposefully shafting your neighbours' citizenry in this fashion to be a rather good example of just that.

Nobody cares about gross market failure, specially if you earn billions on it. The Norwegian goverment had monopolised the selling of gas from the norwegian part of the North Sea, before some EU directive forced it to split up. Why exactly should Gazprom care about the well-beeing of ukrainian citizens? Gazprom is a company. It has two functions: 1) be helpful towards the friends of Russia 2) Get in as much money as possible.

I don't think all firms seek to maximise profits all the time. In the long run, perhaps. I'm afraid I'm not too familiar with the Norwegian fuel markets so you'll understand if I can't argue too effectively against examples pertaining to them. Either way, I believe the logic behind the nationalistion in the first place would have been to ensure a stable supply of a strategic resource, rather than to exercise economic control over one's neighbours.

Sadly, what you think (or I think) or what we wish, is totally irrelevent. Companies exist to maximize profits. Statoil for instance have been lowering safety standards, refusing to pay compensation to divers who got severly damaged due to to much and to hazardous work, trying to outsource parts of the work on the oil instalations in order to lower costs, using the goverment to effectivily forbid strikes in the North Sea (so much for workers rights) and trying to get the goverment to let them search for oil and gas in all areas of the North Sea and the Barents Sea, without any care for the envirment.

Just to mention a few things. So this is a company, who is 78% controlled by the norwegian state, who acts exactly the same way as Shell or BP.

Nor does Norway (to my knowledge) force its enemies to pay substantially more than its friends such as Sweden.

I didnt know Russia treated Italy, France, Germany, Hungary and so on, as its enemies. Your logic is deeply flawed. Ukraine is simply beeing treated as most others.

Oh I see the United States subsidising Columbia. Problem seems to be that the government spends it on guns to fight the communists with. American Imperialism aside, you can't deny that Russia's exact move here will do nothing more than make a lot of ordinary Ukrainians substantially worse off. Surely, as an upstanding socialist, you can't approve of that?

Well, I ment civilian aid, not military aid.
Funny thing with old USSR-imperialism was how pitful they were at exploiting the third world compared the West. They just didnt have any WTO, World Bank or IMF. They did try, like in Afganistan and a few other places, but it wasnt a massive success. They tried to buy some friends, with huge subsidies. The ironic of it beeing that alot of citizens in they're satelite states lived better than they're own.

Ofcouse this will mean that the average ukrainian will pay more. But they have to learn the game sooner or later, wont they (oh damn, it has already been done heh).
It's not really about what I or you want, its to understand the simple rules of the game. However simple they are, people seem to have problems getting it.
Besides, it's the russians gas, and nobody have the right to tell them what to do with the countries own natural resouces.